Modern agricultural practices have led to the development of various implements for use in "no till" farming. "No till" farming takes advantage of the residue left behind harvesters from the preceding season's crop. In other words, a harvested wheat field is left untilled after harvesting with the stocks and roots remaining intact and the cut straw and chaff from the wheat plants remaining on the ground surface. The distinct advantage of such farming is that the top soil is held firmly in place by the straw and chaff and particularly by the roots of the previous wheat crop. The soil is well-insulated and erosion is considerably reduced. "No till" farming, however, is not without problems. Conventional harvesting implements ordinarily produce windrows of straw and chaff discharge behind the harvesting implement. Unless spread, these windrows present difficulty in the next successive planting as the thickness from the surface of the chaff and straw to the earth is considerable and makes seed drilling substantially more difficult. Of course a further problem is the loss of the insulation effect in the areas not covered by the straw and chaff. Additionally heavy concentration of chaff in a windrow appears to "poison" the soil immediately below the windrows. It is therefore desirable to provide some mechanism by which the straw and chaff may be spread across the width of the swath taken by the machine during the harvesting operation. In doing so, both the chaff and straw would be evenly distributed about the entire field thereby gaining the maximum advantage from the crop residue.
Most harvesting implements have a separate discharge for the stalks (straw) and the chaff. The straw is ordinarily discharged through an elevated rear discharge opening. Since the straw is composed of relatively solid pieces of material, it may be physically deflected or projected transverse to the path of the harvesting implement. This is often done with deflector baffles or by a horizontally rotating spreader. Thus, the straw residue does not create a substantial problem as does the chaff.
The chaff is handled somewhat differently than the straw in that it is extremely light by nature and does not lend itself to physical deflection. Therefore, the chaff is directed through its own separate opening forward and below the straw discharge. Since there can be no effective physical deflection provision for the chaff, it collects in a windrow having approximately the same width as the chaff discharge opening at the rear of the harvester.
It is a primary object of the present invention to provide an attachment for different models of conventional harvesting implements that will effectively and evenly spread chaff from the harvesting operation across the entire width of the swath taken by the implement.
A further object is to provide such an attachment that may be driven directly from conventional drive mechanisms provided on the harvesting implement.
A still further object is to provide such an attachment that may be easily and quickly mounted to substantially any currently available harvesting implement of the type that produces a separate chaff and straw discharge.
These and still further objects and advantages will become apparent upon reading the following description which, taken with the accompanying drawings, disclose a preferred form of the present invention. However, it is to be understood that the drawings and description are in no way intended to restrict the scope of my invention. It is well understood that slightly different variations of the disclosed apparatus may be produced without departing from the scope of the invention. Therefore, it is the purpose of the claims found at the end of this specification to precisely define and restrict the scope of what I claim as my invention.